Katrina Pain Index: New Orleans Three Years Later

by Bill Quigley / August 26th, 2008

0. Number of renters in Louisiana who have received financial assistance from the $10 billion federal post-Katrina rebuilding program Road Home Community Development Block Grant — compared to 116,708 homeowners.

0. Number of apartments currently being built to replace the 963 public housing apartments formerly occupied and now demolished at the St. Bernard Housing Development.

0. Amount of data available to evaluate performance of publicly financed privately run charter schools in New Orleans in 2005-2006 and 2006-2007 school years.

0.008. Percentage of the rental homes that were supposed to be repaired and occupied by August 2008 which were actually completed and occupied — a total of 82 finished out of 10,000 projected.

1. Rank of New Orleans among U.S. cities in percentage of housing vacant or ruined.

1. Rank of New Orleans among U.S. cities in murders per capita for 2006 and 2007.

4. Number of the 13 City of New Orleans Planning Districts that are at the same risk of flooding as they were before Katrina.

10. Number of apartments being rehabbed so far to replace the 896 apartments formerly occupied and now demolished at the Lafitte Housing Development.

11. Percent of families who have returned to live in Lower Ninth Ward.

17. Percentage increase in wages in the hotel and food industry since before Katrina.

20-25. Years that experts estimate it will take to rebuild the City of New Orleans at current pace.

25. Percent fewer hospitals in metro New Orleans than before Katrina.

32. Percent of the city’s neighborhoods that have fewer than half as many households as they did before Katrina.

36. Percent fewer tons of cargo that move through Port of New Orleans since Katrina.

A lot of homeowners did have insurance. However, because the homes were damaged because of the levies blowing out and causing the storm surge, and not because of the hurricane winds themselves, the insurance companies considered it not covered.

The levies had been reported to the government for years that they were not sufficiently maintained, and that a storm of this magnitude could cause this kind of damage. Petitions for funds to repair the damaged levies were repeatedly ignored.

Because of that, the Feds SHOULD pay for this, because had these levies been maintained correctly, there would be no flood damage, and so many people would not have lost their homes.

Because the US Corps of Engineers failed to provide adequate protection to the city.

This failure was caused by a lack of management and oversight by a US Government agency directly charged with the design, construction and maintenance of the levees. If a private contractor had done the same shoddy work, would you sue them demanding to be made whole?